September 29, 2019

Vaccinations and Preventable Diseases: Implications of Changes in Vaccination Policies

(Source)   Lately, vaccines have stirred up a lot of controversy. Anti-vaccinators have taken to the internet to expose supposed horrific results of the practice. This assault on a practice that is imperative to the health of our societies has turned heads and started debates. Misinformation about vaccines is all too common and public health organizations are doing their best to contest baseless assaults on the practice. Prominent public figures, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are weighing in on the debate and contributing to the spread of misinformation.   Because of recent opposition to vaccinations, the United States is currently suffering from the worst measles outbreak in twenty-five years. The CDC reports that from January 1st to September 12th, 2019, 1,241 individuals have been infected with measles across thirty-one states. While the majority of these cases are found among unvaccinated individuals, the disease has become so pervasive that it is spreading to infants who are too young to be vaccinated. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has identified the spread of preventable diseases as a growing public health threat. The current discussion and debate surrounding vaccines has drawn nation-wide attention. As a result, the government has started to [read more]
September 25, 2019

Jumping on the Ban-wagon: As Vaping Associated Illnesses Rise, Governments and Corporations Take Action

(Source)   As of September 17, 2019, there have been 7 reported deaths and 530 cases of lung injury associated with e-cigarettes and vaping. Doctors across the country are struggling to determine the true cause of this illness with a high incidence among vape product users. Doctors are unable to even prescribe a uniform diagnosis to the condition, with some using the term “vaping-associated lung injury,” or “VALI.” Many believe these vaping-related illnesses are due to additives—namely Vitamin E acetate—found in some THC vaping products. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has detected Vitamin E acetate in many of the samples tested during  , but it has not been present in all. While the CDC cannot conclusively determine that Vitamin E acetate is the cause of these mysterious illnesses, they recommend avoiding inhaling the oil. In response to this mysterious vaping illness, governments and private corporations alike are striving to heavily regulate e-cigarettes and vaping products. On September 11, 2019, the Trump administration announced it would seek to ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes at the federal level. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently outlining a plan to remove all non-tobacco flavored e-cigarettes and nicotine [read more]
April 25, 2019

National Security Ontology, Part I: Marsha Berzon and the State Secrets Privilege

(Source)   The first several years of the Trump Administration have proven to be a renaissance for national security law.  Aside from the obvious headline grabbers—the Travel Ban, the emergency declaration, and, of course, the Mueller Investigation—there have been several important lower federal court decisions.  These decisions are significant in that they are some of the first to deal with the ontology of different national security rules and doctrines.  One of my old professors once blogged that “[o]ntology is a fancy word for the nature of a thing.”  By that he meant that ontology, at least in the legal context, helps explain what the source of a legal rule is—whether it is a constitutional rule, a rule of federal common law, or is derived from a statute—to better understand its characteristics.  The ontology of different legal rules is especially important where those rules impact the separation of powers.  That’s because the source of a legal rule establishes the role of each branch.  For example, scholars have focused on the ontology of the Miranda warnings and the substantive canons of construction (rules like the rule of lenity that guide judges in interpreting statutes according to some policy).  If Miranda is a [read more]
April 24, 2019

Supreme Court to Hear Landmark LGBTQ Cases

On Monday April 22, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to hear three cases which seek rulings on whether sexual orientation, transgender status, and transitioning status are protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act after years of courts and government agencies taking conflicting positions on this landmark issue. The Supreme Court will likely issue decisions on these hot button cases in 2020 at the beginning of the next presidential election race. Title VII makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against any individual “because of” the individual’s sex. While it is understood that the phrase “because of sex” includes gender stereotyping, the law remains in flux as to whether discrimination “because of sex” includes discrimination based on sexual orientation, transgender status, and transitioning status. Numerous courts and federal government agencies have taken opposing stances on this issue. For example, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has filed an amicus brief arguing that discrimination based on sexual orientation is not encompassed as discrimination “because of sex” under Title VII. The DOJ’s brief directly conflicts with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (“EEOC”) stance, as articulated in an amicus brief, which contends that sexual orientation falls squarely [read more]
December 22, 2018

Keeping I.C.E. Safe in a Privately-Owned Freezer: Using Trespass Law to Circumvent First Amendment Protest Protections

The First Amendment protects the ability to engage in free speech, including protest, in public forums, government owned spaces like parks and sidewalks, provided that protesters do not interfere with movement or block access. In order to limit speech that takes place in such a manner, the government must narrowly tailor their restrictions on speech to serve a compelling governmental interest. This is often called strict scrutiny, and is the highest standard the judiciary uses to evaluate government action, thereby putting a high bar in place to protect First Amendment rights in this case. Owners of private spaces, on the other hand, are able to limit free speech and give orders to leave the premises, the violation of which may constitute trespass. This limits the conflict between property rights and free speech rights that would ensure were there no limitations on where protests could take place. Property owners, particularly businesses, have a legitimate interest in being able to control the actions of guests on their premises, especially when protest might threaten to disturb the regular conducting of business. But what if the government utilized the enhanced ability of private property owners to limit free speech in order to shield controversial offices and activities from protest? [read more]
December 22, 2018

Federalizing Privacy Rights: How Tech Giants Went From Protesting Privacy Laws to Supporting Them

In an impassioned speech in Brussels this October, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, threw his weight behind a federal privacy law, denouncing the data collection practices engaged in by his fellow technological giants such as Google and Facebook. While it is not new for tech companies to push for stronger privacy laws, the renewed impetus for the movement comes from the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which went into effect on May 25, 2018, and California’s Consumer Privacy Act, which will go into effect on January 1, 2020. On the heels of California’s legislation, other states such as Georgia have also introduced similar bills. This patchwork of legislations across states with different levels of obligations has pushed the tech industries to petition Congress to enact a federal legislation. Earlier in November, Senator Ron Wyden (D–OR) introduced a federal privacy bill, but many news outlets report it as unlikely to be passed into law. While the tech companies’ interest may stem more from the desire to avoid compliance with 50 different laws on privacy, this post analyzes the public policy implications of a federal legislation on privacy for the complicated digital economy. Present federal protections for privacy rights: The current approach at the federal level in regulating [read more]
November 17, 2018

On the Basis of Personality: How Harvard’s Admissions Policy Hurts Asian Americans and the Future of Affirmative Action

If being surrounded by diverse peers allows students to learn early on to purge themselves of implicit biases and avoid stereotyping their peers based on race or ethnicity, then the need for such race-based policies in college admissions is clear. Affirmative action’s goal of ensuring the advancement of minorities inherently includes the goal of removing biases against them in the professional world. This goal is especially relevant to Asian Americans, who are less likely than both African Americans and Hispanics to be promoted into management roles in the workforce. The value of a “diverse” education is diminished if affirmative action policies fail to reduce the false notion of Asian Americans inherently lacking leadership skills. More pressingly, affirmative action policies will fail Asian American graduates if they are not allowed in the classroom in the first place. [read more]
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